3 Ways to Connect with Your Trading Mind?

Posted by tradeyouredge on October 14th, 2014

My interest and fascination for the power of the mind continues as I am now nearly half way through my course on hypnosis and hypnotherapy. The more I learn about the subconscious mind, the more I realise that having the knowledge of the subconscious mind and ability to connect with it consciously is just an amazing experience. While the conscious and subconscious mind are part of the same you, the subconscious mind is a great resource to have.

Just to get the ball rolling, I want you to think about this: Do you realise that you have subconscious mind? Do you realise that every time you run a habit or an unconscious activity, your subconscious mind is taking the driver’s seat and your conscious mind is taking the back seat?

In case you’re not sure what I’m talking about, here’s a clue. Do you remember what happened when you woke up this morning? When you woke up, and as soon as you woke up, what is the first thing that you did? For some, that could be taking a pee, brushing your teeth or, it can go as simple as, scratching the top left of your head? Did you realise, consciously, any of those activities? Some of you may remember and some may not but that’s fine because that is a habit and that’s precisely how our mind works. Your mind is so amazing it is as you don’t even have to do it consciously.

In trading, similar activities happen as well. For the purpose of this article, I am going to call your subconscious mind the Trading Mind. And that’s because it is the part of your mind that you use for trading.

How to Connect with Your Trading Mind?

So, now that you are aware that you have a trading mind, I’m sure you are even more curious as to how it works and what it can (or cannot) do? Right? To answer all that, the first thing you need to do is to connect with your trading mind and that’s the topic of today’s article.

1. Emotion Awareness

While we are talking about the trading mind, I’m here talking about your trading emotions. You must be wondering what the relationship is?

Well, like it or not, your subconscious mind is a bank of everything that you do consciously or unconsciously and that includes your emotions.

Ask yourself this, can you consciously control your feeling of fear? Can you consciously control your feeling of anger or even greed? Probably not, right? That’s because, in the context of trading, that is part of your trading mind. Every time a strong emotion is involved, the mind is most definitely involved because there is something that will trigger these emotions. For some, those negative emotions are so strong that it causes bad trading habits like failing to pull the trigger or even over trading.

Of course, seeking professional help is the ideal thing to do. However, I can also suggest that you should start journalling your emotions on every trade. Learn to understand what is going on in the mind before, during and after the trade. The more you journal it, the more you learn about your mind.

Once you’ve done enough of that, find the pattern. Find out if those emotions happen all the time or only on specific setups. Find out if you failed to pull the trigger because of specific emotions or because it failed to meet your rules. Ari Kiev (Professional Psychiatrist) suggested that traders can even time the length of your emotions before it disappears.

2. Watch What you Say

The trading mind can sometimes be explained using the expression above – which is used rhetorically to indicate a potential cause for optimism (half full) or pessimism (half empty). The mind usually goes one way or the other, and rarely in both ways at the same time because this is an unconscious effort.

Note: Just to be clear, I’m talking about being optimistic in trading (in general) and not about being optimistic in a trade.

While it’s always good to be optimistic, here’s the trouble of picking the opposite. When you start off with being pessimistic, that’s like making the wrong turn at a junction. And when you make a wrong turn, it takes effort to make a U-Turn before you can re-route yourself towards the right way. Hence, a certain amount of effort is required. Of course, before you make that effort, you also need to be aware that you’re in the wrong direction.

In an ideal world, you should always remain optimistic. But because things don’t always happen that way, the next best thing is to watch what your trading mind is saying and be consciously aware about it so that you are able to make that U-Turn. This is even more important especially before, during and after a trade because, that’s when your trading mind talks the most.

Once you are aware and have made several U-Turns, it won’t be long before your trading mind knows to turn to the right direction each time you take a trade again.

3. Stay Calm and Relax

Let me ask you this – are you able to have a decent conversation in a noisy place? Can you hear your favourite music (on a player) in a bar or club?

I guess it’s difficult, right?

That’s the same for your trading mind. It’s difficult to connect to your trading mind when there’s lots of noise in the mind. It’s like your own version of the bar or club where there’s too much things on your mind. Hence, if you really want to, then you should try to relax and stay calm before your connect to your trading mind.

As mention in the past, hypnosis is what I do and I would strongly recommend it to you. However, there are plenty of options out there and the first thing to do is to find ways where YOU can remain clam and relaxed.

Conclusion

As you read this article, I’m sure you agree with some or all of the points above. If you do, then I would invite you to think about it seriously and start finding ways where you can connect with your trading mind.

Thank you for reading and I wish you nothing but success in finding your connection. If you think I can be off help, please feel free to contact me here.